Very bad things happening in Britain to Christians

The tide of public opinion in Britain is becoming increasingly hostile to Christianity. In the last year the establishment has begun to move to force Christianity to the margins of society.

The tool being used is “gay rights”, but of course it could be anything. Everyone knows that Christianity condemns unnatural vice. So, as in the days of the Restoration, the establishment has chosen something to which believers cannot agree, and is demanding that they do so. When they refuse, they are dragged into court. If they conform, they know in their own hearts that they have abandoned their beliefs.

In the last couple of years, Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to shut. Christians offering Bed & Breakfast in their own homes have been prosecuted for refusing to offer double-beds to homosexual agents provocateurs.

A couple of weeks ago a Christian couple who had fostered children for the local council for many years were struck off after refusing to say that they would tell future foster-children (aged under 10) that unnatural vice is OK. They challenged this in court, on the grounds that this infringed their human rights, as it must obviously do. But the judges cheerfully said that Britain is a secular country — which must come as a surprise to the Queen, who had to swear to uphold the established church — and that gay rights trump the right to religious freedom. The sinister “Equality and Human Rights Commission”, a state body, delivered a submission to the court in which it expressed concern that the couple might “infect” the children with Christian beliefs. Last week they withdrew the term, but not the idea.

Peter Hitchens has commented on the implications of all this here, although he sounds very tired of being tormented in the comments by atheist and gay headbangers and is not perhaps as calm and clear as he might be. But the points made are spot on.

All this is under existing legislation. It is sobering to reflect that the Labour government intended to go even further. But many of us may have hoped that the election of a Conservative government would mark an end of this process.

Apparently not. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, is reported as saying that the judgement was correct, and that, therefore, no Christian can foster children.

Just think about where we are so far. Christians may not:

Run adoption agencies

Foster children

Rent out rooms to strangers

unless they undertake to endorse unnatural vice in the process.

This should sober us all. It matters nothing what the vice is, that the state has chosen to make an article of faith. It should trouble everyone that a state has decided to do this.

Nor need we suppose that the list of prohibited professions is complete. It is plainly merely a start. The list will grow longer, of that we can have no doubt. The message is plain: “conform … or face the consequences.” The method chosen is not different, in any important regard, from that chosen by Julian the Apostate — to harass rather than imprison.

I myself am unlikely to be affected very much, or until the process has gone much further, because of the nature of my profession. But let us pray for those who are, and also for Britain. For no country can decide to persecute the good folk among them, without suffering. What goes around comes around.

While we remember the martyrs and confessors of antiquity, let us remember also the modern confessors. Let us discuss the matter without reviling, and let us remember that the Lord predicted that they would hate us, for they hated him too.

UPDATE: Peter Saunders has a list with links of some of the climate-forming incidents here. The eChurch blog has a list of blog posts commenting here. Thankfully the widely-read Cranmer is one of them.

But the problem isn’t really specific to Christians; it’s merely that Christians, being hated but also perceived as weak, are being targeted first. Others will be next. Power and spite …

I was particularly disgusted by Call-me-Dave’s demand that Christians must “show tolerance”. The powerful demanding that the weak be “tolerant” is rather like the Nazis attacking the “crimes of the Jews”, and intended for the same purpose.

The list of barred professions is greater than you suggest, here. I, for one, would not in conscience be able to become a doctor, pharmacist, nurse, or social worker, because it would involve at least complicity with the abortion megaholocaust, and some (if not all) of those professions would require your agreement to recommend/justify the “naturalnes” and “harmlessness” of certain gay (and heterosexual) sexual practices. And if you become a teacher, you are pretty well required to do the same, and … Actually, what IS your profession, seems one of the few safe bets.

I’m a computer programmer. No-one *cares* what we think, and no-one is going to ask us to say anything to anyone. Except in binary 🙂

You make an interesting point, but (without disagreeing) I’m not sure whether it is quite the same point. There are still Christian doctors. The abortion issue goes wider, and is not a test of conformity in the same way, if I understand correctly.

But of course you are right that increasingly they are being required to confess the new orthodoxy.

Jesu said, “we do dot wage war againts flesh And blood but againts principles and principalities that set themselves up in high places”. We have entered into the intense times of spiritual warfare. Because of liberalism in the Church and the fear of standing for absolutes, God has given us over to our rebellion as an apostate Christians. Is it any wonder that the world has thumbed its nose up at our Saviour. We have been warned of these days through Christ himself, so read 2 Coronicles 7:14 to the end of the chapter and then you will understand what it will take for God to relent. It only gets worse. I have been shown that the remnant is to prepare herself for the coming bridegroom. Intensify in prayer that you may be counted worthy. And get ready to voice your faith with all fear and trembling for great will be your reward when you are in your hour of testing